аноним спросил(а):

Just seen your post about what Holmes saw in Watson, but what did Watson see in Holmes?


a-candle-for-sherlock ответил(а):

I mean, Watson himself has more than a bit to say on the subject. But I would say:

Watson was depressed and anxious and lonely. Holmes is enthusiastic, he’s eager, he’s brilliant, he’s unselfconscious; he talks to Watson the way you talk to a friend from the moment he sees him. He’s a mess. He forgets to eat. He needs picking up after. He makes Watson feel better about his own messy existence.

He’s passionate and principled and anarchic and endlessly unexpected. He is mysteries within mysteries. He’s BEAUTIFUL.

He notices Watson; respects Watson. He wants him around. He teases him and praises him. He pays attention to him, plays for him when he’s weary, takes him out, tucks him up, walks with him, begs for his company in everything.

He looks after Watson, grounds him. He talks about him constantly as “my boy, my dear doctor, my Watson,” and someone who calls you “mine” is a revelation to someone as alone in the world as John Watson.

He is chaotic. He undermines the prevailing opinion of society by not giving a damn about it. He pursues what fascinates him, fights for what matters to him, and thumbs his nose at anyone who expects his respect for their position alone. He looks at everything upside down and sideways. He makes the world seem less bound to be the way it is. He gives Watson a new life that’s less about solid career choices and more about magic, at a time when the world had started to seem terribly, crushingly unmagical.

He trusts Watson. He believes in Watson in all the ways he needs most to be believed in: that he is a good man, a decent man, a brave and a capable one, a good doctor and a friend. He believes in other things, things that Watson might have lost sight of somewhere in Afghanistan–justice, kindness, mercy, an underlying love evident in the loveliness of the world. People looking out for people just because they can.

He’s tenderhearted; he blushes and tears up when he’s praised, asks forgiveness when he fails, starts to shake when Watson’s wounded. He gets depressed, and lonely, and admits it; he tells Watson when he needs him.

He makes beautiful things; music and truth. And he loves, could love, no one else in the world as he loves John Watson.


witch-lock
The thing those who wish to undermine or diminish the depths of the relationship between Holmes and Watson are wont to forget is: Watson is integral. He’s the narrator; the one who allows the story to be. Without Watson, there is no Holmes as we know him. Without Holmes, Watson has no story to tell. Their lives are inextricably twined throughout history. These two men are linked at such a core level that it has become that one cannot be without the other. Without Watson, all that remains for Holmes is the 7 percent solution. Without Holmes, Watson has no stories to tell. There is no story without the both of them, together.

The connection these two characters have shared throughout time is nearly unparalleled. They exist alongside timeless duos that have captivated us for years upon years; duos such as Romeo and Juliet, Achilles Patroclus, Elizabeth and Darcy, Cupid and Psyche, Lancelot and Guinevere, and other pairings immortalized in time. Holmes and Watson maintain their place amongst them, for who knows Watson without the detective, and Holmes without his Boswell? And born from their dynamic we have known new duos that are iconic in their own right.

This is a story that has never stopped being told, a story that for some reason has lived on in the world. What reason, then, have the words of Doctor Watson about the life shared with his bohemian friend captivated us so? Why through his eyes have we grown to love this detective so reverently and made him immortal? What about his narratives have created such affection within us? What was it we collectively read in between the lines of Watson’s adventures, to endear ourselves to them so?

There is a reason countless adaptations search for the heart of Holmes. It is indeed there, you can see it illuminated in each line of the stories Watson’s tells. The story is their’s. Wether solved or left cold, cases reach a conclusion. Clients take their leave and new ones arrive. Mysteries and adventures pass, separation is fleeting, and one thing always remains.

Holmes and Watson will always return to Baker Street; wives and falls will come, but to 221b these men will make their pilgrimage. There in those rooms they forever remain. Always, #sherlockholmeslives means #johnwatsonlives. Always, “Here dwell together still two men of note. Who never lived and so can never die . . . Here, though the world explode, these two survive.”